Recap from Adult Nationals – Part 2 of 3
I hope you all enjoyed my last post about Adult Nationals (ANs). Seriously, I had the best time. Of course, I was missing my rinkmates and especially my skating BFF and training partner (Hi, K!), but I still managed to have a wonderful time.
While I was in the locker room getting ready for my freestyle event, I met another skater from Colorado (Hi, P!). After we started chatting, we realized that we were very similar. Both of us had children, we were working on similar elements, and we both only skated in 4-5 total competitions. She was new to the Gold level, as was I. We scored similarly in previous competitions, and we were both at ANs with no other rinkmates or coaches. In addition, we had similar music, hair, dresses and even had the same poses in our programs. I had a skating twin! Naturally, we decided to hang out together and coach each other for our event. As it turned out, she skated first, and I would skate third.
As I took my beginning position, something just felt weird. I’m not sure if it was the high altitude or jet lag, but I felt really sluggish on the ice. I also think I forgot to smile throughout my program because I felt heavy.
I was hitting the elusive camel-sit spin combination in practice earlier that day, but what I realized was that once I put it into the context of my program, I wasn’t getting enough speed going into it, so I couldn’t get the required number of revolutions for it to count. As a result, I made the decision to take out that spin and swap it for another one. This turned out to be a good move, since I gained positive GOE (grade of execution) on the new spin and didn’t get the dreaded “dash of doom” for 0 points.
Unfortunately, I fell on my axel, and I ran slightly over time. The 2 point deduction from these two mistakes cost me greatly. Had I not received these penalties, I would have placed 10th.
Although I was bummed and disappointed in myself for this skate, there is a lot to be proud of. I only received one “dash of doom” this time, which was on my lutz combination. I two-footed it and they didn’t count the request of my combination (a toeloop-loop). It’s an improvement from the last competition, where I got two dashes of doom. Also, my PCS (presentation) scores improved too. In fact, my PCS scores were higher than many of the skaters who placed above me.
Coach B and I will be strategizing soon to see what else we need to change to increase my scores for the next competition, whenever that will be. I hope to add a few more difficult spins to my repertoire and earn a score in the mid to high 20s.
Here is my performance from ANs:
Next week I will recap my Dramatic event.
Until then…
